With gender pay gap reporting building momentum as the first April 2018 deadline approaches and more organisations publish their final reports, forward-thinking employers are taking the bull by the horns and applying the same pay calculations to other minority groups within their workforces.

All three organisations cite the same reason for their ethnicity pay gap, which mirrors observations around their reasons for the gender pay gap. The organisations each stated that more non-BAME employees hold higher-paid senior roles across the businesses than BAME employees.

In a way, the gender pay gap reporting regulations have empowered employers to investigate pay gaps and pay structures within their organisations, by providing them with a framework or roadmap to produce relevant data. This data can then be used to inform a pay strategy or any measures implemented in order to address potential pay gaps.

The fact that gender pay gap reporting is now compulsory in the UK for organisations with 250 or more employees has also made the issue much more visible, with statutory requirements forcing employers’ hands in making pay gaps a key agenda item.

As employers widen the net of their pay reporting to really delve into the structure of their workforces, it will be interesting to see the steps organisations take towards creating a more inclusive working demographic. Pay gap reporting could, therefore, be the springboard of innovation for diversity and inclusion strategies in the workplace.